


Touch Starved

by galactiicace



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blind Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mc76 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 13:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9900983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galactiicace/pseuds/galactiicace
Summary: There's no other way to get over touch starvation than to touch each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a sucker for my boys and trying to get over their touch starvation by gently caressing each other, especially when one of the boys can't see, and this is the only way he can do it.
> 
> Follow me on tumblr! galactiicace.tumblr.com

“I’ve missed you.” He feels the way the words form, pads of his fingers tracing every line of cracked lips, splaying through the scruff of his beard – it’s grown out since the last he saw Jesse too many years ago; it still tickles the skin of his palm, the same way it had when they were young, and Jack’s lips twitch with the memory, a ghost smile casted across his mouth. And Jesse’s smiling, too, and though he can’t see it, the once commander can feel the gentle, the warmth.

It had been Jesse’s idea, read something somewhere once about how partners would caress each other with eyes closed, feel each other, in order to achieve a deeper intimacy, and to learn the way each other looked just by the touch of their fingers. At first, it had been met with disgruntled disinterest, but it was Jack, now, that offered the first move, letting digits trail slow across patchy, tanned skin, drawing a picture in his own mind of how Jesse looked now, while the latter watches with honeysuckle eyes, a pang of something old, something familiar, hitching the breath in his throat.

And they sit like that in silence, the words short and few, a simple I want to touch you prompting the session, a surprisingly chaste request given the hidden meaning that, in their youth, was spoken with spark of passion that ignited a flame both thought would burn until the end of their days. Jesse pushes the thoughts away, his eyes closing briefly as he fights the guilt that sweeps him in the moment, focus returning to the gentle prods to his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, his lips. Jack’s fingers linger there more than once, clouded eyes searching in darkness, and Jesse swallows back another pang of hurt that hits him in his chest.

It’s bizarre to see him like this, the once powerful commander, the man who had the whole world, who was so beloved and adored and strong, reduced to a bitter old man, only just learning to let go, only just learning to heal, and even then, the days are hard. And even then, it’s almost never like this, the soft words, the closeness – it’s a rare privilege for Jack to reach out first, to be the one who offers the intimacy first, and Jesse knows he’s uncomfortable, that this is hard for him (it’s hard for them both), but it’s something he’ll hold dear in his heart for as long as he lives. They’re touched starved. This is how they heal.

I missed you. It’s pulled from Jesse’s lips almost unconsciously, and he wonders, briefly, if Jack hadn’t heard him, hyperfocused as he memorizes every line and crack in skin. The words aren’t reciprocated, but it’s okay, they’re no less true, even if Jack hadn’t felt the same, and Jesse’s content with this; for as much time as he spent trying to get the old fool to open up, to stop his bullshit martyr complex, to have him this way, to touch him and feel him and breathe him in, without fear that one of them will run, it’s more than he deserves, and more than he could have ever asked for. Slowly, his fingers smooth across Jack’s thighs, letting himself feel the texture of his pants, as Jack’s hands shift their hold from his face. The fabric of Jesse’s shirt is caught, then, pads drifting across the button down, across broad shoulders, pressing to the divot of his collar, down his chest, he feels anything he can beneath the shirt, silent and stoic as ever, and Jesse finds himself hanging onto every motion, lost in it.

It’s several seconds before he realizes Jack’s stopped, though, the gentle caresses lost as his hands sat idly in his lap, gaze – though unseeing – casted downward as he “stared” at open palms. He watches for a half beat longer, before his mouth falls open to speak, but Jack beats him to the punchline. 

“I want you to touch, too.” The request is almost startling, and he stares for a moment, thinking he heard wrong.

“Pardon?” Jack’s head picks up then, blind eyes unseeing as they trail across Jesse’s skin, and he moves to run his fingers across the younger’s face.

“I want you to touch me. I—“ he shifts uncomfortably, brow pulled together for a moment. “I want you to experience it, too, I mean. Kinda hard being the only one doin’ this, y’know?” Jesse chuckles, and Jack glares back at him, eased only when he feels bare fingers across wrinkled, scarred skin. A moment passes, and suddenly the amusement is gone, odd focus pulling Jesse’s thoughts as his fingers move delicately across Jack’s face, the aforementioned unfastening the buttons of Jesse’s shirt before slipping his fingers beneath the cloth, the broad of his hairy abdomen, eliciting a smile from the old soldier. And Jesse watches, every twitch of muscle, the way scars curve and litter porcelain, until digits eventually move to stroke slow across the long gashes that split his face. He traces the larger one, first, from the side of his forehead, across his eyes and nose, and down to the right side of his face, before he moves to catch Jack’s chin, thumb pressing along the deep scar at his lips, not noticing the way Jack stills at the affection.

And they sit like that for several minutes, lost in feeling one another, Jesse’s thumb stroking slow across wrecked lips that part with each pet, and Jack’s fingers splaying across the thick of the younger’s chest, committing to memory every fresh line that hadn’t been there years earlier, but especially the way Jesse’s heart beats in his chest, erratic and drumming every time Jack moves. And though Jack can’t see him, he still seems to know just how to find Jesse’s gaze, and they stare at each other, whiskey to mist, in a silence that doesn’t need filling. But Jesse fills it anyway.

“I’ve missed yo—“ He’s seized in perhaps the softest kiss he’s ever been graced with, lips hesitant and feather light. Jesse smiles into the kiss, his palm pressing to Jack’s cheek, the other hand squeezing at his thigh. It lasts only a few moments, short-lived and unfulfilling for them both, but it’s a start. They part, and Jesse is still grinning like an idiot, fingers still petting, hearts still racing, and it’s a start.

“I’ve missed you too, Jes.”

And it’s a start.


End file.
